Studio Visit with Whitney Gardner
Originally recorded July 5, 2022.
George Irwin of Western Gallery visits with Whitney Gardner, whose work centers on painting and who is based in Twentynine Palms, California, for a wide-ranging conversation about the artist’s work, process, and studio practice.
Transcript note: Speaker labels were assigned from the source audio where available and dialogue context otherwise. Paragraph breaks were added for readability, and verbal filler was lightly edited. Joint labels mark rapid or overlapping exchanges. This was prepared from an automated transcription, so minor transcription errors may remain.
Artist-narrated clip—July 5, 2022
Watch the original video on Instagram (00:35)
Participants: Whitney Gardner
Whitney Gardner: I spent a number of days camping and exploring the area to gather information I needed to take home to the studio with me. So in this collection, there are two plein air paintings included. These were created during my trip staying in Death Valley and they inform my work in the studio, not only not only for color and shape, but they give me a feeling of what it's like to be in this landscape.
Instagram Live studio visit—June 15, 2022
Watch the original video on Instagram (26:39)
Participants: George Irwin and Whitney Gardner
George Irwin: Hello, Instagram! George Irwin here with Western Gallery and it's time for yet another studio visit with one of our very talented artists. This afternoon special we're going to be featuring Whitney Gardner who is our Impermanent Collection Excuse me. Who is our Impermanent Collection artist that is featured at the moment with her new collection of paintings called Death Valley, or at least they're all about Death Valley done of Death Valley. So we will get her on here and have her show us around her studio which is pretty small but really nice. So we'll take a look at that and talk to her about her paintings and a little bit about, you know, Death Valley and kind of what the paintings are about. So hello everybody thanks for tuning in. Let's see if you're just joining us we're going to be talking to Whitney Gardner I'm I'm gonna see if I can get her on the Instagram live. Here we go.
George Irwin: All right, there she is. Hey Whitney!
Whitney Gardner: Hey!
George Irwin: How's it going? Doing great how about you? Doing all right. Doing a lot of Instagram lives these days.
Whitney Gardner: So I've seen.
George Irwin / Whitney Gardner: I like it. It's been fun, it's been
George Irwin: fun. Well it's nice to see you with some of your awesome pieces behind you from the Death Valley group of work and i guess i'm wondering you know like as it's a studio tour would you mind kind of showing us around a little bit in your hut that
Whitney Gardner: you built? Yeah it won't be an extensive towards 80 square feet for walls but yeah let's do it. Flip this around yeah let me flip this around sure okay so that trailer outside is my old studio I just store shipping stuff in there and awesome my drawing table studies and different things like that these definitely need a lot of
George Irwin / Whitney Gardner: I'm sorry? Gotcha. And then, oh I'm
Whitney Gardner: sorry, I think... Built this shelving here. There's all...
George Irwin / Whitney Gardner: Oh can you hear me? I can't. I'm just going to be quiet though because
George Irwin: I think there's a delay that's making it hard for us to
George Irwin / Whitney Gardner: go back talk back and forth. Okay well anyway so this is just
Whitney Gardner: shelving where I store more paintings and more paintings, and supplies and stuff like that. Here's one piece from the Death Valley collection here. These are some plein air studies that I might show towards the end of the year. And then this is my main wall where I actually store a lot of my work just straight onto the wall so while I'm working, I can kind of see everything. At the moment, I just put the Death Valley pieces up. I was working on a larger piece and this is just my little area. Awesome. Super simple palette with a Home Depot plexiglass On top of cardboard on top of this little antique thing
George Irwin: Where I keep all my paint
Whitney Gardner: Yeah, my main easels just an aluminum travel easel This is a piece. I'm working on these a lot of work don't pay too much attention to that sure And this is kind of my mess. This is like the messiest part of my studio where I kind of have my white cloth, my table easel and my brushes and kind of just
George Irwin: where all the messy stuff gets put. Man looks like you might have tidied that up a little bit maybe.
Whitney Gardner: No this is how it usually will be. I think it looks pretty messy, but and then I have some nice views, some sand dunes of the Mojave out there. And that's the extent of this tour. Very nice!
George Irwin: And you've covered this before, but you built this studio from kind of nothing right? You and your boyfriend?
Whitney Gardner: Oh, I kind of missed you for a minute. Hold on. It's kind of choppy.
George Irwin: Gotcha. So we talked about this before but you and your boyfriend just built the studio out of like from nothing a few years ago.
Whitney Gardner: Yeah, my husband.
George Irwin: Husband? Oh, sorry.
Whitney Gardner: That's okay. That's okay. Yeah, this was an old tin shed that had a really nice concrete slab and the shed we couldn't really even store anything in it water was getting in so we tore that down and yeah I just needed a solid studio I was working out of a trailer which is cool but in the desert it's windy where I live and the trailer would rock and you know trying to get work done. The heat and the cold. Actually the biggest thing was the dust storms, and I would be working on a piece like fresh wet oil paint on the easel we'd have a dust storm and the next day I'd cover it and that too. It was terrible. But, so yeah we just framed on top of the slab that was existing. Did like a corrugated roof I think the whole thing was really cheap, was extremely cheap. And it's what has really been able or has allowed me to be able to just do this full time and have a sturdy workspace
George Irwin / Whitney Gardner: and you know I love it. I love this little studio. It's like space to think and space to work
George Irwin: yes and kind of like, you know just like sort of clean and you can think about
George Irwin / Whitney Gardner: like what something looks like on a wall even. Yeah and that's sort of by default.
Whitney Gardner: I don't have other storage and when i'm working on a whole collection and I sort of want the work to be around me so I can just glance at it while I'm working on other things. And it's, yeah, so I get the work that I can look at it right away and then it's also storage, it's fine.
George Irwin: Yeah, cool. Well Whitney this last, the first.
Whitney Gardner: There we go.
George Irwin: Whoops are we back? Okay, so the first collection of works that we showed last year was I guess called Calico and it was it was the area right around where you're right near right near where you living in 29 Palms. And then this year you've been focusing on Death Valley. And I know like you've done some other pieces and most of them kind of are closer, I feel like in geography to where you are on a regular basis. What brought you down to Death Valley? And what was your inspiration for focusing on that area?
Whitney Gardner: I think I'm just sort of trying to spread or sort of just get a better visual language of the Mojave Desert and wanting to bring that into Western art. It's been done before, of course. John Hilton and Jimmy Swinerton they all painted Mojave sometimes. So it's really just my own exploration of wanting to just have different places and different shapes and different things to create compositions with. I do paint a lot of the area around me here near Joshua Tree. Calico is actually just out of Barstow about two hours from where I live now. I mean, Mojave has these wrinkly mountains and interesting colors at sunset. There's something different. And I sort of just think it's an expansion of my exploration and my knowledge of wanting to get a sense of this landscape. And Death Valley was an idea that I had actually while I was working on Calico,
Whitney Gardner: just sort of a continuation of this landscape that's sort of void of all like your Bob Ross elements,
George Irwin: you know, like the lake and water, you know?
Whitney Gardner: Like trees and clouds and all those things. Calico and Death Valley are lacking a lot of vegetation. It's sparse. So you're really trying to concentrate of making your composition with, you know, just using shadows and light and shapes of mountains. It's a challenge at least for me. Sometimes I wish I had some more elements to put in the piece and then feel like maybe that would make it stronger but it's really just a way for me to just flex my interest in creating these sort of desolate landscapes.
George Irwin: Cool, yeah I mean you definitely have to work to make some of those interesting compositions that you've come up with and when you're looking around figuring out like maybe where to rest your eye or what to frame as curious enough curious enough to make a whole painting about but yeah that's really interesting. Who is this that says the, like the, oh Gina. Gina's like devoid of the Bob Ross
George Irwin / Whitney Gardner: elements. I love those funny too. I loved Bob Ross. I definitely have them. Yeah me too. But there's not so many
George Irwin: like happy little trees in the hobby desert. No, no not so many. But you did I mean you do kind of have a way to and I guess this speaks to your answer to the challenge which is you have a ways to make it feel inviting. These pieces that you're making are turning out to be very like beautiful, multidimensional. There's there's like almost a softness to part of them that you don't think would be something that would come across in a painting about their value. So it's really, that's really great to see. When so I know that you spent a good amount of time down there you were camping, you were doing plein air studies and a hundred plus degree heat. And so some of it I feel like maybe this is, you had said this just a second ago but you're kind of getting to know this area intimately and that is coming through in the way that you are processing that acquaintance
George Irwin: and experience in putting that on the canvas. What was it like being down in Death Valley for a little period of time, as a camper? Did you have any experiences that were interesting?
Whitney Gardner: Yeah, I mean, I really love camping and hiking and exploring. So for me it's sort of like, oh, I get to call this my job. Cool. You know all working in getting references and yeah so I think the most you know interesting or challenging aspect that I faced was sort of
George Irwin: of like, what do I do midday?
Whitney Gardner: I can't necessarily paint in the middle of the day at the height of the heat. And I'm not gonna go for a hike because I'll waste all my energy that I need to do the plein air paintings
George Irwin: when it gets cool.
Whitney Gardner: So I just kind of hung around my campsite trying to stay shaded and things like that. And actually ended up having these really interesting camping neighbors that were Dutch. So I was able to hang around the campsite and talk with them. They were cyclists that were cycling the world, and we got to talk about a lot of different countries. And yeah it's... I mean that's the really interesting thing about national parks is you have people from all around the world visiting that you can, you know, sort of share of element with. They shared my campfire at night and we shared some wine and you know just communal things um yeah but other than you know, just sort of trying to lay low in midday um I don't know my experiences was both you know i stayed there multiple times to get this collection together and you know just waking up with the sun trying to you know plan my
Whitney Gardner: day, trying to plan an area where I'm gonna paint for you know will sunrise and whatever. And another challenge was like oh this doesn't look the same in this light as it did yesterday and it's not as interesting and so just running around early in the morning trying to find a place to set up and then you know when you finally see it then it's like okay, you know what to do? You start painting and I think we had talked about before is set up early in the morning and the painting was taking me a little longer. And the heat really just came and you know I had to finish it.
George Irwin: Yeah and then it was time to finish.
Whitney Gardner: I got a nice sunburn, you know? Always. Always a nice trophy to take home.
George Irwin / Whitney Gardner: That's a nice way to think about sunburn for sure. Oh wait, my connection seems a little slow.
George Irwin: Oh yeah, I think we keep kind of like both cutting out a little bit but um I feel like i'm here I can see you. I think that it will record us both pretty well, we'll
George Irwin / Whitney Gardner: see. Can you hear me? Okay. I can hear it, yes. I
Whitney Gardner: can hear you and the visual is a little choppy. It could be it. I have really weird
George Irwin / Whitney Gardner: reception out here in this area. Yeah that's all right. Can
George Irwin: you tell us about your painting with the fence that's behind you?
Whitney Gardner: I'm sorry, I'm getting choppy. I can't really hear you. Oh, sorry. I was saying... Let us see if my door open will help. I have a tin roof and maybe that's sort of deflecting a signal or something.
George Irwin / Whitney Gardner: Or it can go outside.
George Irwin: Well what, I mean whichever, if you can hear me, I am trying to ask you to tell us a little about the painting with the fence behind you and um I don't know, I guess like what what drew you to that? Bueller? Bueller.
Whitney Gardner: I'm still getting chalky. Oh man. Should I try and do this outside?
George Irwin: Yeah we can see if it comes back if you walk around a little bit. All right. Can you hear me now?
Whitney Gardner: I still can't hear you.
George Irwin: Oh, man. Do you... Can you see me? Can I do sign language? Okay. I'm not sure if this is going to work. Am I still gone with...? Well it's a good thing that... You taped a bunch of things because this is not working too well right now.
Whitney Gardner: Okay, you're back! I can hear you really well now.
George Irwin: Okay, the cloud moved or whatever. The star link has come back into range. I was asking if you could talk about the painting with the fence and kind of like how that... How what drew you to work on that one? Which one, I'm sorry cut out for just a second. The painting with the fence right there behind you. Yeah that one yeah. Either one either one.
Whitney Gardner: Okay, it's cutting out so I'll talk about both of them. Yeah, good. This was one of the first pieces I started in the collection. This is near Texas Springs campground and I just wanted to capture sort of that midday daylight, where the whole landscape was really saturated with light. We had these layers of mountains coming stacked behind and I thought the whole feeling of this scene that I was seeing in person just felt very like a monument. It was very strong and stable. And so I wanted to sort of capture that light and the structure, and just sort of like the subtle colors in the shadows. And the different structures of... I don't know if it's like just sort of like a sandstone or limestone that made up this really strange platform that this structure stood on top of. This piece here was a piece that I painted kind of towards the end of the collection And it was during sundown,
Whitney Gardner: I actually had my focus on a different scene
George Irwin: which became the other painting.
Whitney Gardner: I don't have it here, I already shipped it out but Timbisha Twilight. I was really waiting for the sun to get low to kind of get this like sort of like that last sun glow sort of look. And as I turned around, I saw this scene just directly opposite. And just with this gate and the bushes and this mountain above, I just thought, you know, like there's another painting waiting to be.
George Irwin: So yeah, both those pieces, you know?
Whitney Gardner: Just for I was trying to just get a sense of different light in the Mojave or in Death Valley. And then this piece was, it's sort of like a close-up. It was a whole landscape, lots of other elements but I thought this was such a busy scene within this landscape that I decided to just crop it and narrow down onto just this ravine with this shadow in the morning. Yeah, almost just a way to explore what a landscape composition can be you know it's not like you have your horizon line it's you know it has this different feel to it. It was mostly just from my own experiment like can I do this? Can I make this interesting?
George Irwin: I think you're very sorry, that's gonna say I think that one's really successful. I love something about that. I love it's like, you know, maybe it's just like the study of the rock surface but somehow like yeah, it just it has in like an abstract quality but it being like a real part of
George Irwin / Whitney Gardner: landscape is really, it's a really cool piece. Yeah that's sort of what I was seeing in this
Whitney Gardner: also has this natural field, it' s a natural formation but at the same time if you really focus your attention on just one part of it with these different shadows and colors and shapes happening it is almost like something you wouldn't see in nature, it is absolutely.
George Irwin: I think, I've seen like some George Carlson pieces that are also pretty successful in doing that and he's incredible but it kind of reminded me of that a little bit.
Whitney Gardner: Yes, George Carlson even has pieces of Death Valley that are just spectacular.
George Irwin: Oh, I haven't looked up to see if you had any of those specifically. I'm curious about that now. Very cool. So did you encounter any wildlife while you were down there?
Whitney Gardner: The interesting thing is I didn't see snakes or anything. I don't know if it's just the areas I was at, it's Death Valley. It's very sparse of vegetation and to have animals you need vegetation and water. And there's definitely animals there. I didn't have any rare sightings, I wish it had. But yeah, nothing that was too surprising.
George Irwin: Well when you got back to the studio and you brought your planar studies and all your photos, how did I guess what was your process like in kind of like deciding what images to make into... Oh gosh, you're chopping it out again. So sorry. I think it's my connection.
Whitney Gardner: and spotty semi-rule internet.
George Irwin: Yeah, that's okay with it. Well how about this? We saw your studio. We've talked to you about your work and we have other clips that I'm going to share over the next week or two as well that you recorded about some pieces. And for those of you who are watching if you haven't taken a close look at work at western.gallery, be sure to do that. And we will try this again some other time with maybe at some point I'll be out in California and we can like record something that doesn't require an internet connection and have more to share later.
Whitney Gardner: Okay. And George, thank you so much for the presentation and your care and your hard work in putting together these shows like with New West Talent with Every Impermanent Collection. I always feel like your presentation and you're in your eye for detail and I just I'm always so satisfied being an artist working with you and I'm sure all the other artists will be the same.
George Irwin: Thank you so much, Whitney. That's uh, thank you. I feel humbled for that. But um yeah I mean likewise I love obviously I love working with you and i love your work and I am thrilled to show this uh this body of work again. And so y'all stay tuned and we'll be sharing more from Whitney Gardner and check out her pieces on Western Gallery. Thank you for tuning in, thank you for sticking with us through these connection difficulties and we will see you guys next time. Okay, bye, Whit. Okay, fine! Thank you everybody!
Artist-narrated clip—June 15, 2022
Watch the original video on Instagram (00:34)
Participants: Whitney Gardner
Whitney Gardner: I spent a number of days camping and exploring the area to gather information I needed to take home to the studio. So in this collection there are two plein air paintings included. These were created during my trip staying in Death Valley, And they inform my work in the studio, not only for color and shape, but they give me a feeling of what it's like to be in this landscape.
